Istālif

Istalif was a mountain settlement outside Kabul whose orchards and gardens attracted Babur after he took Kabul in 1504. In his memoirs he praised the grapes, the abundance of small garden plots and the cold stream flowing through the village, with orchards on both banks. The account gives a close view of a cultivated mountain landscape that formed part of the Timurid world around Kabul.

One estate, Bagh-i-Kalan, had earlier been taken by Babur's uncle Ulugh Beg Mirza. Babur recorded that he paid its owners, bringing the garden into his own possession through purchase. The garden's history thus joins agricultural abundance with the decisions of a ruling family: an existing estate was appropriated, then purchased, and remembered in the memoirs of the ruler who would later establish the Mughal dynasty in India. Istalif's place in that account rests on its water, fruit and carefully chosen garden setting.